Who Was the Greatest of All-Time? a Historical Analysis by a Complex Network of Professional Boxing
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Journal of Complex Networks (2020) 1, Advance Access Publication on 29 February 2020 doi: 10.1093/comnet/cnaa009 Who was the greatest of all-time? A historical analysis by a complex network of professional boxing Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/comnet/article-abstract/8/1/cnaa009/5770924 by guest on 02 March 2020 Adam G. Tennant† Department of Engineering, 2030 Business and Engineering Center, University of Southern Indiana, 8600 University Boulevard, Evansville, IN 47712, USA †Corresponding author. Email: atennant@usi.edu Chase M. L. Smith Kinesiology and Sport Department, Health Professions Center 3092, University of Southern Indiana, 8600 University Boulevard, Evansville, IN 47712, USA and Jotam E. Chen C Department of Engineering, 2030 Business and Engineering Center, University of Southern Indiana, 8600 University Boulevard, Evansville, IN 47712, USA Edited by: Ernesto Estrada [Received on 16 October 2019; editorial decision on 23 January 2020; accepted on 3 February 2020] This study seeks to examine and compare boxers throughout history creating a pound-for-pound list of the different fighters. A PageRank algorithm was utilized to rank the boxers from the network to determine a list of the top 10 fighters from 1897 to 2019. Two data sets were utilized, a truncated subset and a larger data set, to explore the impact of network size on the rank of boxers. Additionally, the researchers systematically varied the damping factor of the PageRank algorithm to determine the effects on the rankings. A discussion of the results includes a comparison of journalistic rankings and those from a points-based system from the respected boxing website BoxRec. Keywords: boxing; PageRank; ranking. 1. Introduction Pugilistic historians for more than a century have engaged each other in a theoretical debate on who was the greatest of all time within the four corners of the boxing ring. Often these debates fall short due to a lack of evidence, these arguments must encompass wide time frames, multiple weight classes of boxers and a massive data set. The debaters must rely on speculative arguments such as boxer A’s speed was far superior to boxer B’s and this would have won the fight for them. These debates can be entertaining in a pop culture sense but only address the small data set of fighters that one person’s mind can bring to the debate. Additionally, they are tremendously biased to one individual’s preferences for style of fighting or even ethnic bias. The culture of sport in America is one that prides itself on undisputed, unquestioned, unanimous champions for both team sports and individual. Typically, fans can identify these champions from special events (e.g. Super Bowl, US Open, World Series, The Masters, etc.). While the boxing world contains © The authors 2020. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. 2 A. G. TENNANT ET AL. title fights, fans are only privy to identifying an undisputed champion within a weight class. This leads many to wonder who is the best of the best. The pound-for-pound (P4P) argument is probably one of the most contentious in the sport and everyone seems to have an opinion on it [1]. This study attempts to breakout this debate, from speculation to more quantitative arguments by sharing preliminary findings of a sports data analytics approach. The researchers in this study ranked individual boxers through the PageRank algorithm and created a historical model of the complexity of the sport. The specifics of the Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/comnet/article-abstract/8/1/cnaa009/5770924 by guest on 02 March 2020 research are discussed in this study along with the results of the rankings. Although the science of boxing for the combatants is brutally simple, to hit and not get hit, the sport additionally offers a rich source of data for complexity science. Boxing, with its long history, has a depth to its data that can be explored with complexity science to yield insights that analysis from standard statistics has left in the dark. The researchers will explore whether Google’s PageRank algorithm sufficiently creates an all-time greatest P4P list regardless of weight class or historical time frame. 2. Background The depth and breadth of complexity science and network science provides insight into such diverse set of research topics as: cities [2–5], infrastructure [6], health [7], biology [8] and even friendship [9]. Sports is a topic in the field of data analytics that is just beginning to be explored in earnest. Cassady et al. [10] took the approach of using a quadratic-assignment model that could be customized by param- eters selection values. A genetic algorithm and other search techniques were employed to rank NCAA Division I-A football with this technique. Deng et al. [11] employed a power law ranking method based on prize monies collected or points earned on 12 different sports. The results for the various sports yielded similar graphs with almost matching exponents for the power law. The PageRank algorithm was developed by Larry Page in 1996 for ranking academic papers. It is a probability distribution that was quickly applied to webpages by use of a weighted network to optimize web searches, where quality of hyperlinks of a webpage produces an advantages PageRank score that pushes the webpage up on search results [12]. Lazova and Basnarkov [13] used FIFA World Cup soccer matches to populate a graph where the PageRank algorithm is applied as an effective ranking system by use of a method to assign weights to the graph based on matches won and goals scored. Tennant et al. [14] produced a general model of the complexity of the sport of boxing exploring match play between welterweight boxers from 2004 to 2015. The PageRank algorithm was used to rank the boxers from a directed graph. The rankings produced were compared with the sport’s notoriously corrupt sanctioning bodies, journalistic rankings and other ranking systems. This work supplied further confirmation of the value of the network-based analysis in athletic match play, but was limited in its timespan and had the narrow scope of only analysing welterweight fighters. 2.1 Pound for pound The approach to deciding who the best-ever in boxing must include a list that consolidates all boxers from all weight classes. Currently, the debate on who is the best of the best within boxing no matter the era is labelled as the P4P champion [15–17]. These lists (i.e. rankings) comprise of fighters who competed directly with other fighters on the lists, and fighters who fought decades prior to other fighters. While there are several different lists publicly available, the majority of those lists come from non-academic sources. Moreover, many of the rubrics used for creating the lists can be argued as biased (e.g. how exciting the WHO WAS THE GREATEST OF ALL-TIME? 3 fighter is) or subjective (e.g. quality of opposition). At any rate, the goal for each ranking is to identify the best P4P fighter; to ever fight. One limitation worth mentioning is the competitive structure professional boxing adopts that influ- ences the different levels of competition a modern-era boxer may face over their career. There are significant factors identified by past scholars [18] that explains reasons why the best boxers seldom fight each other within a particular weight class. The governance structure for professional boxing is not Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/comnet/article-abstract/8/1/cnaa009/5770924 by guest on 02 March 2020 exclusive to one sanctioning body like other individual professional sports (e.g. golf, tennis, bowling). Professional boxing has [at least] four major boxing sanctioning bodies that have significant influence in the industry: World Boxing Council (WBC), World Boxing Association (WBA), International Boxing Federation (IBF) and World Boxing Organization (WBO). Each of these sanctioning bodies claim to have a world champion in each of the respective weight classes [18]. The main implication of having different sanctioning bodies for professional boxing is a lack of ability to identify the best boxer within a weight class. Additionally, there seems to be a lack of oversight in the governance and enforcement of title fights for each sanctioning body, along with corruption within the decisions of fight organizers and promotors [18]. This essentially affects contractional agreements which leads to champion fighters to avoid fighting the best opponents when defending their title. Thus, the limitation exists for the researchers to establish a surface-level boundary to identify which fighters had comparable fighting resumes. 2.2 Past rubrics for all-time best The P4P lists contain substantial popularity for active boxers. The Transnational Boxing Rankings Board [19] has consistently [since 2012] put out the perennial top-10 P4P rankings. They utilize a point-system to attempt to quantify the answers to the following questions to determine their list: how high is the quality of the fighter’s recent opposition? How strong is the fighter’s career-long resume? How advanced is the fighter’s ring generalship? How willing is the fighter to accept all-comers? The authors of this list acknowledge the subjectivity of the list by mentioning the frequent occurrence of a lively debate. When considering the best fighters in history, McRae [15] acknowledged the element of subjectivity in the list for the top 50 P4P boxers of all time. Factors like wins, losses, world titles and the quality of opposition were variables incorporated. The appeal of the list seemed to be the looseness of the list itself, thus allowing for enough ambiguity to spark a discussion. Mulvaney [16] seemed to clarify reasoning for a more objective rubric by including significant variables such as: in-ring performance, achievements, dominance and mainstream appeal.